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The Aven de la Boucle (Corconne, Gard, southern France) is a karst shaft used as a collective burial between 3600 and 2800 cal BCE. The site encompasses the skeletal remains of approximately 75 individuals comprising a large majority of adult individuals, represented by scattered and commingled remains. To date, few studies have explored the potential of ancient DNA to tackle the documentation of Neolithic collective burials, and the funerary selection rules within such structures remain largely debated. In this study, we combine genomic analysis of 37 individuals with archaeo-anthropological data and Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates. Through this multidisciplinary approach, we aim to characterize the identity of the deceased and their relationships, as well as untangle the genetic diversity and funerary dynamics of this community. Genomic results identify 76% of male Neolithic individuals, suggesting a marked sex-biased selection. Available data emphasize the importance of biological relatedness and a male-mediated transmission of social status, as the affiliation to a specific male-lineage appears as a preponderant selection factor. The genomic results argue in favour of 'continuous' deposits between 3600 and 2800 BCE, carried out by the same community, despite cultural changes reflected by the ceramic material.

The amplification length of the DNA fragments is one major limitation of most paleogenetic analyses. Routinely, only fragments below 200 bp can be amplified, significantly reducing the content of genetic information. Although overlapping PCR strategies and next generation sequencing techniques have strongly improved data mining recently, these methods are still expensive and time consuming. In contrast, SNP analyses are easy to handle, fast and cheap. In this study, we compare two methods of SNP detection as to efficiency, cost and reliability for their use in ancient DNA applications: pyrosequencing and competitive allele specific PCR (KASPar). Our sample set consisted of 16 horse bones from two Scythian graves (600-800 BC). In conclusion, both approaches produced reliable results for most allelic patterns. But an indel of 11 bp (ASIP) could not be detected in the KASPar approach and produced problems in the pyrosequencing method (70% success rate). In such cases, we recommend checking allelic distribution using a gel approach or capillary sequencing. Overall, in comparison with the traditional mode of ancient DNA investigations (PCR, cloning, capillary sequencing), both approaches are superior for SNP analyses especially of large sample sets., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)

Archaeologists often argue whether Paleolithic works of art, cave paintings in particular, constitute reflections of the natural environment of humans at the time. They also debate the extent to which these paintings actually contain creative artistic expression, reflect the phenotypic variation of the surrounding environment, or focus on rare phenotypes. The famous paintings "The Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle," depicting spotted horses on the walls of a cave in Pech-Merle, France, date back ~25,000 y, but the coat pattern portrayed in these paintings is remarkably similar to a pattern known as "leopard" in modern horses. We have genotyped nine coat-color loci in 31 predomestic horses from Siberia, Eastern and Western Europe, and the Iberian Peninsula. Eighteen horses had bay coat color, seven were black, and six shared an allele associated with the leopard complex spotting (LP), representing the only spotted phenotype that has been discovered in wild, predomestic horses thus far. LP was detected in four Pleistocene and two Copper Age samples from Western and Eastern Europe, respectively. In contrast, this phenotype was absent from predomestic Siberian horses. Thus, all horse color phenotypes that seem to be distinguishable in cave paintings have now been found to exist in prehistoric horse populations, suggesting that cave paintings of this species represent remarkably realistic depictions of the animals shown. This finding lends support to hypotheses arguing that cave paintings might have contained less of a symbolic or transcendental connotation than often assumed.